The inventive subject matter pertains to communication systems and, more particularly, to wireless transmission and reception of data in a communication system.
In modern communication systems, data typically is sent in packet form from one communication node through a network to another communication node. These packets typically include one or more headers and a payload, which is the useful data to be sent, received and used by the communication nodes. Such data transmissions in a Media Access Control (MAC) protocol may take place at a relatively low transmission rate.
During transmit and receive operations, handshaking occurs to acknowledge the proper receipt of transmitted data. An acknowledgement is typically requested by a transmitting node after sending a block of data. If errors occur, an error acknowledgement is returned to the transmitting node, and the data is transmitted.
Often the acknowledgement request must be repeated. The acknowledgement request may be repeated in subsequent physical layer protocols, thereby further lowering the overall transmission rate.